Reclaiming Arab “Skin”

Abstract

FQ columnist Bilal Qureshi turns a spotlight on Kaouther Ben Hania’s provocative and daring feature film The Man Who Sold His Skin (2020). Nominated for the Oscar for Best International Feature as Tunisia’s first official nominee, Skin is a long-overdue satirization of that earnest and recurring narrative about the helpless migrant refugee and noble white saviors. In telling the story of Sam Ali (Yahya Mahayni), a Syrian refugee who makes a Faustian bargain with an art world superstar, Skin asks what it means to be free. Turning the psychological experience of marginalization into a work of palpable and visceral storytelling, the film explores urgent themes that encapsulate the centuries of violence—both physical and psychological—that cultural colonialism has inflicted on brown bodies.